Thursday, March 8, 2012

Super Tuesday Results: Who Was the True Winner?

Super Tuesday sure was an exciting day! The results were semi-predictable but Romney is not sweeping up states like he should be (considering the massive amount of money he has spent). On Tuesday...

Mitt Romney won:
Alaska
Idaho
Massachusetts
Ohio (narrowly)
Vermont
Virginia

Current number of delegates: 429

Rick Santorum won:
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Tennessee

Current number of delegates: 169

Newt Gingrich won:
Georgia (his home state)

Current number of delegates: 118

Ron Paul won:
not one state...

Current number of delegates: 67



Needless to say, Romney dominated, but not as much as he should have! Romney's campaign spent about $11.9 million just in the month of February. Oh, and by the way, despite his vast personal wealth, he has not dipped into any personal funds to support his campaign WHATSOEVER.

Rick Santorum is really giving Romney a run for his money, and the vote was so close in Ohio that it was scary! For a while, I really thought Santorum was going to take Ohio as well. Fun fact: Romney's campaign spent $1.2 million on ads in Ohio attacking his opponents. As the votes were coming in, everyone was speculating about whether Santorum would be able to pull through. Romney got 37.9% of the vote while Santorum got 37.1% of it. Unbelievably close!  It doesn't matter too much, though, because in the general election, Obama will most likely take Ohio anyway.

As I was glued to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, I got to see all the candidates' Super Tuesday speeches. Pretty entertaining, really. Santorum was related to pretty much every damn person in the room during his speech and Gingrich was supported by lots of very naively optimistic southerners who somehow think he still has a chance at being the GOP candidate. Old ladies decked out in sparkly American flag apparel referred to Gingrich lovingly as a "good ol' boy," while Romney blabbered on about restoring America and repealing "Obamacare."

While Romney technically won the most states on Super Tuesday and has the most delegates, Santorum definitely broke the record for being the most "talked about" candidate on Super Tuesday! A big part of winning elections is about having the conversation and the buzz be all about you, and everybody seems to be talking about Santorum these days. More than 40,000 tweets sent out from 6 am on Tuesday to 6 am on Wednesday mentioned Santorum's name. This was a 2012 election record for the highest spike in Twitter mentions of any GOP candidate! Although this sounds like a good thing, most of the tweets were negative in content. They always say, any press is good press, right? We shall see!

Romney has criticized Obama for being "feckless" and says that "hope is not a foreign policy."  What did Obama have to say to that? This is why I love Obama.



With all that said, I am still convinced that the real winner of Super Tuesday and the true front-runner of this election is President Obama.  What do you think?

6 comments:

  1. Hi Ashley :)

    I just found your blog by chance, and I have to say that I really enjoyed reading all that you wrote. I'm a 21 year old Political Science major who hopes to become a lawyer someday... so all this election jargon really interests me! I love when I find other women out there that are taking their country seriously and can eloquently/ knowledgeably state their opinion.

    I really look forward to reading more from youso I followed ;).

    Honestly, I think Obama's going to be reelected by a good margin. I am not his biggest fan, but I am in no way a "hater" and I REFUSE to vote for a candidate like Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum. My social rights are too important as a women for me to take any of them seriously. People forget the mess Bush left him and he was a celebrity on a pedestal when he was elected. The sort of change people want cannot in my opinion happen in just four years. I think he has done what he said he would do, maybe not to the degree or extent we had hoped for, but to me, that counts.

    lovely-21 blog

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  2. Hi Lacey!

    Thank you so much for the nice comment! I am glad you found my blog :) Always looking for other politically-minded women to bounce ideas off of! That is great that you are a poli sci major and hope to become a lawyer someday! Yay! Where do you go to school?

    Yeah, I don't think Obama has too terribly much to worry about, although it's not going to be easy if Romney is the nominee. We'll see! I agree with you about all the GOP candidates though....as a woman, I cannot understand how ANY woman could in good conscience vote for any one of those men. Hell, I don't even know how any of them have wives...money and power, I guess. haha!

    Thank you so much for following me and I am going to take a look at your blog now :)

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  3. You're welcome :). I'm getting ready to transfer to a four year hopefully in the fall to a UC in the Southern California area- not sure which one yet. Most girls act extremely confused when I say I'm a Poli Sci major, HAH, but whatever. I just try to motivate when I can :).

    Exactly. I think it's also because they don't know, they aren't informed, and they have no motivation to be informed since that's not something women normally do right? Which is quite sad really. Majority of women that were in my 101 class had no idea about their reproductive rights. I was shocked and scared for all of them lol.

    I saw your comment, thanks for visiting :). I wish you the best of luck with your blog :D. It's inspired me to write some stuff on my own blog.

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  4. Oh, awesome! I went to UCSB and totally loved it! It's such an amazing environment and a very, very politically active campus! All of the UCs are awesome, though! :) Haha yeah, a lot of girls don't understand the whole political thing and think it's "boring." What they don't understand is how much it affects THEM! The decisions that are made every day in Washington really do have a bearing on our every day lives, believe it or not hahaha

    I am scared for any woman who hasn't been following all the current happenings with regard to reproductive rights! It's a huge issue for women and a very pivotal time in history right now. This kind of discourse is the kind of stuff that kids will be reading about in history books someday.

    Your blog is awesome! Can't wait to see more :)

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  5. Awesome! Every time I meet girls like that I make sure to enlighten them a whole lot, even if they think it's "boring." Girls are a lot easier to sway though compared to guys- men just do not want to listen period. Then when I find a guy in my major who loves what I have to say I quickly stay friends and hopefully they continue the message we share lol. Wow, I sound overly obsessive but I know what I believe and I'd rather enlighten someone and they respectfully disagree than just allow someone to be uninformed.

    Coming from California, one of the states with the best reproductive rights, it's ridiculous that women here have no idea what's at stake. I really hope this sort of thing does make it to history books. Maybe then more women and MEN can learn :(.

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  6. Hahahaa good for you! Gotta spread the word and inform our fellow ladies :) You are not overly obsessive, just passionate, and that is a really GOOD thing!!!! :)

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